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Safe Haven

I love Nicholas Sparks' novels, but the movie adaptions aren't always as good as the books. One of my favorite movies in general is The Notebook, even though they majorly changed the book's ending for the movie, but the recent Dear John was not so great. However, I was pleasantly surprised by Safe Haven, which catches your attention from the very beginning of the movie and then will hold it for its entire almost-2 hour runtime.

In the beginning of the film, we see teary-eyed Katie (Julianne Hough) at the bus station, running away from an abusive home situation. She takes a bus to Atlanta and then a connecting bus to get her to North Carolina, where her goal is to keep to herself. She gets a job at the local restaurant, and ends up meeting Alex (Josh Duhamel), a widower with two children who runs the general store. One night, he stops by her house in the woods and leaves a bicycle for her; she's at first offended, since he dropped it off in the middle of the night and thus violated her privacy, in her opinion, but soon she realizes that it was a nice thing for him to do. They strike up a relationship, but when he finds out her secret, she has to tell him about the person she left behind in Boston, and why she's hiding from him now.

I did read Safe Haven but it was a while ago; however, I do remember that it's a little more violent than typical Nicholas Sparks books. Safe Haven grabs our attention by showing this at the beginning of the film, or at least the situation that Hough's character is in, and then revealing a little more throughout in the form of flashbacks. The acting in this film is good, too, and Julianne Hough and Josh Duhamel (who is now 40, but definitely doesn't look it!) have undeniable chemistry together.

Yes, see this movie. When I left the theater, I overheard one woman scornfully say that "only fans of Julianne and Josh Duhamel and teenage girls will like this movie," but I disagree. I am a fan of both actors, yes, but am not a teenage girl, and I liked this movie a lot; it's better than a handful of movies I could name that I've seen recently, and it was engaging and didn't have any slow spots in it. I will say that fans of "chick flicks" may enjoy it more than others, but anyone could enjoy this film, and it's a good choice to see at the theater in a season that's usually filled with only mediocre movies.

Safe Haven is in theaters today, February 14th, and is rated PG-13 with a runtime of 115 minutes. 4 stars out of 5.

So we've all been there ... that time when you're on an important phone call, and then the call drops. Or even when you need to use the internet on your smartphone, only to realize that you're at your data limit for the month.

I drive all over the metro Detroit area for movie screenings; because of this, most of the time I know where I'm going, but sometimes, I'm in an unfamiliar area or at an unfamiliar theater and I need GPS to know how to get there and back.

A few months ago, I was headed to the AMC Forum (Sterling Heights area) and I wanted to know the best way to get home from there. My phone kept stalling ... and stalling ... and then the Maps app crashed! Gah! I was extremely frustrated. I was finally able to re-start the phone and get safely home, but it TOOK. SO. LONG. Had the Maps app worked the fir…

*Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. The opinions expressed here, however, are my own. As long-time readers of this blog surely know, I travel quite a lot. A few years ago, I only took about 2-3 trips per year, not including trips in the state of Michigan (Grand Haven weekends, etc.), but this past year, I was fortunate in that I was able to travel very frequently.

I recently heard about a new travel site, DirectHotels.com, which is similar to Kayak.com, in that it searches all of the other travel sites (Orbitz, Expedia, etc.) to find the best deals for you. I gave it a bit of a test run to see if that is indeed true.

About the site:
DirectHotels.com is a new hotel comparison tool that challenges the big brands. Travelers can easily compare all the travel sites in one place to find the cheapest hotel. DirectHotels.com compares over 200 bookings sites, so users can be sure about its accuracy. Using DirectHotels.com means that you will never overpay.

I've written these past two years about Bookstock, a huge used book & media sale that takes place at Laurel Park Place, in Livonia, and it's returning again this year, from Sunday, 4/22 through Sunday, 4/29.Read more about the event over at my book blog! I was finally able to check it out last year, and they had a large mix of books and media (including DVDs, Blu-rays, and records).To learn more about Bookstock, click hereto visit my book blog, or visit their official site here.